Dr. James Hollis

If this isn't right, well, but what's this and what's that?

And people are troubled by ambiguity.

And so therefore there's always a reactive nature in some individuals who are fighting that, you see.

So again, it shows up in various issues of racism, whether we have abortion or not, or whatever the social issue may be.

A lot of what's playing out there is the traditional role definitions versus a sense of the autonomy of the individual to live his or her journey, you say.

Well, you're asking me to speak both as a therapist and as a citizen, I think, and I'll address the first one first.

Part of the therapist's role is to differential diagnosis.

In other words, if a person comes in with a depression, we have to try to define what kind of depression we're talking about.

There are different kinds of depression.

Is this a reactive depression?

It's only pathological if it lasts too long or interferes with their normal functioning too much.

And that's a judgment call.

If a person's grieving the loss of something important in their life, the loss of a marriage, let's say, it's appropriate to feel depressed for a certain length of time until life's challenges move one forward and so forth.

There is biologically driven depression.

which can be approached with medication, although many of the antidepressants are very limited in their success.

Long-term therapy tends to be more effective, as various studies have recognized, albeit there's an economic cost to that.

And then thirdly, there's what you can call an intra-psychic depression, which is what I experienced,

was that, you know, there were certain parts of my life that had been walled off.

And, you know, that was crying out.

Pathology comes from the Greek word pathos, which means suffering, and logos, which means expression of.